Shadow of the Mind
by Lady Margot
Summary: Peter is chasing down a monster that is also being hunted by someone from Section.
1. Chapter 1

Shadows of the Mind

Prologue

The night had always had held a kind of fascination for Miriam. The cool shadows of twilight had held her safe from the evils of her childhood, wrapping her in their long, dark embrace. The moon had been her only friend on nights when her parents had forgotten her existence, wrapped up in their liquor and their disappointments. The fascination had held even to her adult life, taking her and her "brother" to places no sane person would willingly go. The night could still cover her in a cocoon of silence and peace like nothing else. It had taken her into the Section, where most of the work could ill afford to be scrutinized in the light of day. It had taken her to dark alleys in distant countries and moonless rendezvous at deserted airfields. It had given her the name she went by in the Section - "Nightbird".

Tonight, it took her to a high iron fence and a lonely house that smelled of fear. She quietly cut the last wire to the elaborate security system then carefully let herself onto the grounds, moving confidently in the darkness toward the back door. Her infrared goggles cast a queer glow only she could see on the grounds in front of her. She kept to the shadows, moving in and out of their darkness as she slowly tracked her prey back to its lair. The mansion loomed up suddenly before her, looking for all the world like the house from "Psycho". She would not have been surprised to see Norman Bates looking down at her from the second story window. Not surprising since the person she was here to find made Bates look like an amateur.

The back door to the mansion was not locked, a fact that set alarm bells ringing in her head. "So we're expecting company tonight, are we?" She thought, allowing the door to open slowly in front of her. "You didn't mention he might be on to us Michael." A quick look into the darkened kitchen confirmed there was no other living soul in the room except for her. A briefcase and pair of keys on the table were the only signs that anyone might be in the house at all. She moved quickly through the room into the main house, following the blueprint in her head of the layout of the first floor. The safe, according to those plans, was in the subject's bedroom, at the top of the house. She was almost past the basement door before she heard it. A sound like an animal in pain, coming from the bowels of the house. She stopped, debating whether she should go on. Her job was to find the package and eliminate the person responsible for its disappearance. Her Operations officer would accept no excuse for not coming back with her objective. She reached out and tentatively touched the door. Her hand came away wet and sticky. Even with her goggles on, she knew by the smell that the substance was blood. Every instinct screamed "GET OUT" yet she knew she would have to look, to know if she was right. She slowly removed her goggles, and opened the door. A blast of cold air greeted her, carrying the scent of death with it. Miriam could see a small light at the bottom of the stairs, a light that seemed to beckon her. She followed it, her hunting knife clutched firmly in her hand. Once at the bottom of the stairs she could see that the light was coming from under a door just a few feet away. She crept up to it and opened it slowly to a scene from Hell.


	2. Chapter 1a

Pt. 1 - five years later

Peter Caine looked across the desk at his foster father Paul Blaisdell with disbelief. "You're kidding! Paul,

are you saying that you know who this guy is? This nut case that's been leaving carved up corpses in public places for weeks! Why didn't you lock him up when you tracked him down the last time?" The detective paced the small office angrily, glaring at the older man behind the desk.

Paul sighed, wishing there had been an easier way to relay this information to his impetuous charge. " What I said Peter was that I recognized his M.O. when we found the first body. It's been nearly five years, but I'm pretty sure it's the same man. " He looked across at his agitated foster son with a bitter smile. "As for why I didn't lock him up - I wasn't in a position to do anything about it at the time."

"What does that mean?" Peter asked angrily.

"I wasn't part of the investigation, Peter. Hell, I wasn't even a consultant. The only reason I heard about it at all was the agent in charge was sponsored by a friend. He told me about a string of horrific murders up and down the coast of Mexico. A corpse being found in churches, in ancient ruins, even in a hospital that was under construction. Each body was like our victims, tortured probably for days, then slowly bled to death." Paul shuddered as he remembered the dispassionate way his friend had described the case. "My friend was NSA, or at least that's what we told people he was. He told me his agency wouldn't have even bothered with what was obviously a local matter if the killer hadn't taken out one of their couriers. A team was sent in to retrieve the material the man was carrying when he was kidnapped. The agent in charge took it upon herself to eliminate the kidnapper as well as retrieve the package."

"If they took this guy out, then why are bodies turning up here, five years later?" the young man demanded furiously.

"I don't know Peter. I just don't know." Paul's face reflected the weariness he was feeling. After the first body had been found, he had made a few phone calls. After the third body, he had stopped calling friends and had started calling adversaries. The story had been the same from all of them. No one was talking, not even to him.

"Chief?" Chief Strenlich stood silently in the doorway, pointedly not watching Peter continue his pacing. "This lady says she needs to see you." He stepped aside to let a tall brunette preceded him into the office. Her gray eyes swept the room quickly, sizing up the two men at a glance.

"Captain Blaisdell? My name is Miriam Nightbird. I believe we have a mutual friend, David Rochester. He told me you might be in need of my services."

"Your services?" Paul asked, a cold lump forming in the pit of his stomach at the sound of his old "friends" name.

"Yes, in dealing with a certain gentleman of interest to both of us. We knew him five years ago as "El Doctor de la Muerte." I believe your local reporters have taken to calling him The Ripper."


	3. Chapter 2

Pt.2.

Peter eyed the stranger warily, unsure of how to respond to her offer. "You know our killer?"

"In a way. I dropped a house on him once." Miriam smiled at the confused look on the young detective's face. "Well, it worked in the Wizard of Oz."

"The Wicked Witch of the West wasn't anywhere close to being the nightmare this man is." Paul replied, his eyes never leaving his visitor's face. "Let's be honest here Ms. Nightbird. David Rochester is a cold-hearted SOB who never cared about anything or anyone. Why would he suddenly care about a serial killer he didn't want to discuss only yesterday."

"I haven't a clue why Mr. Rochester would wish this creature captured. It is not for me to ask such questions. I only follow orders. You understand about that, don't you sir?" She sat primly on the edge of the chair in front of the desk with her hands in her lap. On her ring finger was an ornately carved onyx band with a series of intertwining silver Celtic knots overlaying the stone. The silver caught the rays of light from the office lamp and reflected them towards the outer edges of the room. The onyx bands seemed to absorb the light, burying it deep in the stone's depths. She twisted the ring around and around on her finger, the only outward sign of her inner emotions.

Peter looked from his foster father to the tranquil woman beside him. "So, what agency did you say you worked for?"

"Peter…" Paul began, his voice grim.

"I didn't say." Miriam replied, smiling slightly. "My "organization" is of a private nature, made up of various former FBI, NSA and CIA operatives. We are called in to assist other agencies with matters considered outside the bounds of their normal experience. My specialty is creating a profile of serial killers, having received my training while with the FBI's Behavioral Sciences Division. My foster brother – who will join us on this investigation shortly – is an expert tracker. We were both members of different agencies when I first encountered our mutual quarry." She pulled a small leather wallet from her jacket and handed it to the detective, flipping it open so that he could see the identification nestled inside. "Mr. Rochester seemed to think you were asking for his help when you called him, Capt."

Paul stared back at the enigma sitting across from him for a moment, then nodded. "Yes, I suppose I was. I hadn't, however, expected him to send a person – much less two people - to assist in this investigation. I was thinking more along the lines of a file."

Miriam shrugged. "Sorry, obviously we have our wires crossed here. But I believe that my previous experience with this perpetrator would be of more help than all the files I could give you. And my brother's tracking skills will take up when my information can no longer assist. "

Paul grimly looked from his foster son to the stranger, then leaned back in his chair with a sigh. "I suppose you are right. But you are both only here in an advisory capacity, do I make my self clear Ms. Nightbird?"

"Crystal clear, sir."

Peter examined the card with care, a small voice in his head telling him to ask nothing further about where this woman had come from. "So tell us what you know about our man." Peter demanded, handing her the wallet as he pulled up another chair beside her. "Who is he and why does he do these terrible things? Better yet, how do we find him before he kills again?"

"Start at the beginning." Paul said quietly, leaning back in his chair.

"As you wish." Miriam straightened in her chair, her mind going back to that day, five long years ago, when she had first learned that demons walked the earth in the shape of men.

It had started out like any other investigation for the Section, with little fanfare and much speculation. A courier had gone missing along with his cargo, a set of the standard "very important papers". All the usual strings had been pulled and all the local agencies had been used to the limits of Oversite's tolerance but no sign had been found of the young man and his package. Operations had written him off as a turncoat and had sent out all the proper authorizations for his elimination when the notice had come in. Miriam had been away in Barbados with her brother when the man had disappeared, recovering from a joint operation with another Section. Her team leader had apprised them of the situation just before their return to Virginia, in case one of them would be needed to hunt down the traitor. It hadn't mattered much to her at the time. She was a relative "rookie", only having been assigned to them within the last year. She knew that they would have to be desperate to risk sending her on such a chase before her internship was over. And she knew that Operations distrust and fear of her foster brother would keep him from pulling him into the hunt, even if it was something he was good at.

"Miriam, you're wanted in Operations office." Burkhoff had called out to her as she entered Section headquarters, sliding his chair away from his computer terminal.

Miriam glanced back at his cubicle with a smile. The teenager stood out a mile in the Section's world of hard-ass killers. Yet his youth and inexperience was tolerated by their by the book Operations officer because of his skill in infiltration of cyberspace. "What's his beef?" she asked, setting her backpack down beside the wall. "I haven't had time to screw up yet, I've only just gotten back from vacation."

"Don't know and don't care. All I know is the Man has been giving everyone ten kinds of hell since he got a message this morning from Texas."

Miriam shrugged then walked up to the glassed in enclosure that held Operations main office. Operations was a difficult man at the best of times, riding his agents hard to be the best. It didn't help that he had been her sponsor into the Agency and had pulled strings to have her assigned to his Section. If anything, it seemed to make him colder and more distant towards his one time protégé. And having Oversight saddle him with Miram's "foster" brother hadn't made things any easier. Inside the office, the Section's leader sat behind a modernistic desk, intently studying a display on his screen. His cold blue eyes showed no emotion as he scanned what appeared to be bloody crime scene photos. "Have a nice time?" he asked, never looking up from his console.

"Like you care, old man." She replied sarcastically, standing at attention in front of the desk.

"You're right, I don't. Our errant courier has turned up in a border town in Texas. You're going down there to lead an investigation."

"Why?" she asked curiously. "If Section security is working like it should, he's dead and the body is in the ground by now. What am I investigating?"

Operations looked up at the newest addition to his cadre with a frown. "You're right. He's dead. Only thing is, we didn't kill him. Seems our young friend ran afoul of a serial killer known to the local authorities as "The Doctor". I want you to find this person and bring him in."

Miriam looked back at her employer with a puzzled frown. "Bring him in? Why?"

Operations shrugged imperceptibly. "It was suggested by one of our Psych Ops people." He turned the screen so that she could see the carnage recorded on the image. "I've been told he's quite artistic in his technique. Even more so than your brother."

Miriam struggled to keep the revulsion she was feeling from showing on her face. "I would think that sort would be too unpredictable to make a good prospect for Section." Her voice was carefully neutral, a trick she had learned from the former head of Section 1, an older woman who had been replaced by Operations only a short while ago.

"Probably, but our recruitment officers want to give it a shot anyway. And besides, there's the little matter of the package the courier was carrying when he disappeared. It's still not been found, and my guess is that our friend with the appetite for death probably is keeping it for a souvenir." He slid a CD case across the desk at her, along with a manila folder. "Here's what you'll need to know about the case. You're contact will be one of our people out of the El Paso office, a Leroy Chiao. He'll be your liaison with the police. "

"No FBI involvement?" she asked, glancing briefly at the envelope.

"They'll send a profiler if you need one. However, you won't need one. We don't want to know why he does what he does. At least, not just yet. Just find out who he is and what he did with that package. After that he's not your problem. The Bureau will play ball on this one. It's in their best interest to do so. Seems one of this man's first victims was one of their trainees." He turned away, dismissing her without a word.

"I had been with the Bureau only a few years when we received word of a serial killer working in the border area between Texas and Mexico." Miriam's hands clenched reflexively as the memories of that investigation flowed out of the darkness in her mind where she relegated all such horrors. "When I arrived, I began my own investigation. I had read the files provided by the local officers, detailing what little they knew about their quarry. They had found four bodies, all of them showing signs of torture and extreme blood loss. In each case the body was left displayed in a place of "Safety", a church or a hospital. In one case they found the body nailed to the door of a school. Each body was missing some internal organ and it was from the finesses of this surgical technique that the authorities had decided the perpetrator must have medical knowledge. Hence, the name they gave him "Doctor Death". Something about the description of what he did to his victims sounded so familiar, as though I had witnessed such events elsewhere. Even the descriptions of the victims seemed familiar."

"There seems to be no correlation between any of the victims." Paul interjected, flipping open several files on his desk. "One was a stock broker, another a housewife, and the third was a dancer in a nightclub. They didn't know one another, had no ties that we could find…"

"They had one tie." Miriam replied, reaching across the desk to look at the crime scene photos. "Before they met this monster they had been very physically beautiful."

Peter jumped up from his seat with a snort. "So you're saying this guy kills people because they're beautiful?"

"Yes, in a way. Their beauty attracted his attention, which stimulates his desire to posses and subjugate them. He needed to bring them down, make them less then he perceived them to be, less beautiful, less untouchable. This obsession led directly to their imprisonment, torture and eventual death. So, in a way, you could say that the main reason for their deaths was their beauty."

"You said his MO sounded familiar." Paul prodded, carefully pushing the rest of the files towards her. "Did you find out from where?"

"Yes. There had been a string of such murders over a five-year time span. Always the same, corpses left in public places, mutilated then drained of blood. No trace of the perpetrator, no clues as to where the crimes had actually been committed or how the victims were transported." Miriam glanced through the files quickly, noting the similarities between the present day victims and those she had examined nearly five years before.

There was as knock on the office door and Jody let herself in, her eyes automatically finding Peter. "There's been another one. Uniform guys just found her near your father's Kung Fu studio. Only thing is, this one's still alive."

Miriam rose gracefully from her seat.. "I must speak to this woman immediately. My brother will no doubt have already heard of the new victim and will probably meet us at the crime scene." She fished a folded page from her jacket pocket and looked at it thoughtfully.

"What is this?" Peter asked, anxious to be out the door.

She handed him the unfolded paper with a grim smile. "The face of the butcher I thought I had killed five years ago." She glanced down at the well-creased page coldly. "This is Doctor Death."


	4. Chapter 3

Pt. 3

Peter set off for the crime scene with Paul's enigmatic visitor in tow. It surprised him that Blaisdell had agreed to accept her assistance even grudgingly. The woman seemed to take no notice of the police captain's hesitancy, moving quickly towards the door to the parking lot. The two men moved towards the precinct door at a slower pace. "A wise man once said keep your friends close and your enemies closer." Paul had whispered to his foster son as the woman moved out of earshot. "Keep her and her brother as close as you possibly can, Peter. At least until I can pull in some favors and find out what's really going on here." He watched them leave together, a worried frown on his rugged face.

Peter glanced at the woman at his side, trying to decide what it was about her that made Paul so nervous. It certainly wasn't her looks. If anything, she looked almost nondescript. There was nothing from her primly braided dark hair to her conservative dark suit that would scream of danger. Even her nails were short and bare of color. He couldn't tell what color her eyes were since she wore dark sunglasses, similar to Kermit's but of a more fashionable style. She had the right credentials, though experience told him that those could be forged. She even came with an introduction from an old friend of Paul's, although that in itself had seemed to put Paul on his guard.

"Didn't anyone tell you that in order to drive an automobile, one must keep one's eyes on the road?" Miriam's asked, amused by the detective's searching stare. She could almost hear the thoughts as they raced inside the young man's mind. Who is she? What is she? Wouldn't you just like to know? she thought with grim amusement. Miriam had made it a point to study the people related to the case, especially one Detective Peter Caine. He had made for interesting reading, almost as fascinating as the dossiers on both his foster father and his biological father, Kwai Chang Caine. Caine especially had been of interested to both her and her brother. His family history had been too familiar to her male counterpart.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to stare." Peter replied, smiling his most winning smile.

"Yes you did, detective. You're curious what it is about a plain little ex-FBI profiler that would set your associate on edge. I'm afraid I can't help you with that. Profilers may appear to be working some form of witchcraft when we make our determinations about a possible suspect, but our deductions are based on science fact not fantasy." She watched the road unfold before her, mentally matching the landmarks with the map she had studied before her arrival. "We're not going to the hospital?"

"How did you know that" Peter asked suspiciously.

"We just passed a sign for it back a few blocks. Unless you are taking a short cut, than we've either missed our exit or are going somewhere else." She shifted in her seat, tucking the portrait more securely in her jacket pocket. "I take it we are going to the crime scene first."

"Yeah, I thought we might show your sketch to the people in the area first. If our survivor is in as bad a shape as the one's we didn't get back alive, I don't think she's going to be in any condition to answer questions. At least not for a while. You didn't finish your story in Paul's office." Peter commented, changing the subject. He pulled his car into a tight turn around a traffic light, causing passing cars to screech to a halt. "You said there had been other murders."

"Yes. My brother and I had the reports of these other homicides faxed to me along with the personnel files of the other Bureau operatives I would be working with. I like to know something about the people I'm to work with so that I can assign them to areas where their talents can be best used. And my brother is a touch possessive of his sister's time and life. It was while reading through these files that I find a disturbing piece of information, a connection that would eventually lead me to our killer."

"What was the connection?"

"One of our investigators had been in each of the towns where bodies had been discovered at the same time as the killings. The murders stopped when he left the town."

"Kind of circumstantial, don't you think?" Peter pointed out, pulling his car into the only open parking spot in site of his father's studio.

"Yes, it was. But I dug a little deeper, looked into the agent's past. What I found convinced me that he was our man." Miriam pulled herself out of Peter's sports car with a frown. They were parked in front of a building surrounded by police cars and news vans. The front area of the building had large windows where she could see people practicing a form of martial arts. "What is this place?"

"My father teaches Kung Fu here in Chinatown. Looks like our latest victim was found in the alley behind his studio." Peter started down the crowded street, moving with confidence past the hordes of police, news media and bystanders who had gathered to watch another tragedy unfold. He didn't look to see if she had followed, assuming that she would approach the scene in her own way.

Miriam stood for a moment looking into the crowd, searching for the faces she knew must be there. Her brother – the darker half of her soul – would have come directly to the scene of the crime, the better to get a scent to track. HE, the evil she was seeking, had never been able to resist being there when one of his victims had been found. It must have given him such a feeling of superiority, she mused, to stand there in plain site beside his handy work and not be suspected. She doubted he would have changed his ways, even after all that had occurred since they had last met.

"He is here, hidden in the shadows." A soft voice at her elbow stated mater-of-factly.

Miriam turned slowly, startled at being walked up on without her knowledge. The man beside her was tall with dark hair streaked with gray that he kept tied up. His clothes were drab, meant for function not fashion. Yet his eyes made him stand out to her, eyes filled with wisdom and sadness. Kwai Chang Caine looked as non-threatening in person as he had in his file photos. "Who is here?" she asked softly, knowing the answer before he spoke.

"The man you seek. The one whose darkness had led him to commit these terrible crimes."

"And you are?" she asked, pretending ignorance of his identity.

"I am Caine." He replied quietly, his eyes never leaving her face. "You seek this man?"

"You have seen him?"

The man shrugged, then turned to look at the ever-growing crowd of people. "I have not seen him. But I have felt his presence many times in the last few days. He stalks the streets like a hungry wolf, ravenous for his prey."

"Wolves kill for food. This monster kills because it amuses him." She turned to walk towards the police investigators when the man lay a gently hand on her arm.

"Why then do you kill?" he asked gently.

"Because we can." A male voice replied. She turned and smiled in the direction of the newcomer.

"There you are my dearest, darkest knight. I was wondering when you would catch up with me."

The man laughed and stepped out of the shadows, a cruel smile on his lean face. A face familiar to anyone who lived in Chinatown. The face of a younger Caine. He motioned for his sister to pass him, gestured jauntily at the older version of himself, then turned and disappeared into the crowd.


	5. Chapter 4

Pt. 4

Miriam walked slowly through the gathered press of humanity, tuning out the nervous chatter of curious on-lookers. Caine was right, her prey was here, probably waiting to leave as soon as the crowd had grown too big for him to see his handy work. Flashing her ID at the uniformed officers, she slowly walked up the alley to where the latest unfortunate had been found. She could here the ambulance's siren in the distance, racing against time to save another life. "Who found the body?" she asked, moving gracefully around the forensics team.

Peter frowned back at her, momentarily distracted from his conversation. "She's not a corpse yet. Her name was Ann Marsten and she was a visitor here. She was suppose to meet her friends for lunch around the corner and when she didn't show up they went looking for her. Uniforms found some shop keepers who talked to her about an hour ago. Seems she has a college roommate who lives here in Chinatown with her parents. Both women were attending some sort of reunion and had been going to all the different shops, preparing for a party they were throwing at the college."

"Was she pretty?" Miriam asked, examining the bloodstained door a technician was dusting for prints.

"Does it make a difference?" Peter asked bitterly.

"It makes all the difference in the world to him. He did her hurriedly, with none of his usual attention to detail. Something about her must not have pleased his sense of esthetics." The low buzz of her cell-phone interrupted the conversation, giving her an excuse to turn away. "Yes?" she whispered, moving imperceptibly out of earshot of the others.

"Nightbird." A familiar voice replied.

Miriam frowned, recognizing the call sign by which the Section alerted her to their presence. She turned back to Peter, her face impassive. "Sorry, it's a personal call. I'll catch up with you in a moment." She turned away and moved into the shadows, away from prying ears. "So, you've found me." she sighed into the phone, wishing it were anyone on the line but Michael.

"Operations has heard from Oversight. They want a progress report." Michael's French accented voice replied calmly.

"Oversight should know better than to rush me." Miriam replied, frowning. "Did they tell you to prepare to assist me in my search?"

"No. It's not considered a Level 5 matter."

"Nothing is these days." Miriam sighed, her eyes scanning the scene of the crime. "Then send your little protégé. What's her name again? Nikita?" There was dead silence on the other end of the line. "Michael? Answer me, mon ami."

"Now is not the time for this conversation." Michael replied, coldly.

Miriam snorted in amusement. "Michael, there is no conversation to be had. Jurgen is dead and I'm well aware of the part you played in that. Fortunately for all of us, I never was the type to hold a grudge. I need someone to act as lookout while I follow this trail."

"Ask Operations yourself."

"Can't do that. You see, my old friend, I'm not exactly performing the duties for which I was recruited. Operations thinks I'm in Cairo, tracking down a member of the Abu Nidal organization. Oversight thinks I'm in Pakistan, following a lead to bin Laden. So you see, asking for backup from either of them might be a little tricky. Jurgen is dead so all I have left is you." The silence from her associate was becoming annoying. "Michael if you can't think of something witty to say, then just say good-bye."

"Bon Nuit, ma belle." Michael replied, then with a click severed their connection.

"Your friend is troubled." Caine's commented, appearing out of nowhere to stand beside her.

Miriam blinked in surprise. Very few men were silent enough on their feet to creep past her hyper vigilante senses once. That he had done it twice was becoming a problem. It seemed that the descriptions of some of Caine's exploits weren't exaggerated after all. "He's not the worrying type."

"Your friends do not know you are here."

"Hasn't anyone ever told you, Mr. Caine, that it is not nice to listen to other peoples conversations." Miriam glanced back at Peter Caine, who was comparing notes with a member of the forensics team. She looked back at the older man and quickly came to a decision. If Michael wouldn't send backup then perhaps she could acquire it from the local talent. And Caine, according to his file, had just the kind of talents she could make use of. "It seems I am going to have a problem where you are concerned. Honesty is not something I practice regularly, so please excuse me if it the words do not come naturally to me. No, I'm not here at the request of my organization. This is a personal matter. I thought I had killed that loathsome worm stalking your community five years ago. But it seems that my "associates" were more interested in him than I gave them credit for. I won't make that mistake again."

"You will kill him?" Caine asked somberly.

"He's already dead, Mr. Caine." Miriam replied, tucking her phone back in her pocket. "He just doesn't know it yet."


	6. Chapter 5

Pt. 5

Peter moved away from the crime scene, trying to ignore the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. He had, over the years, seen some bad situations on the street but nothing like this. That the woman had survived at all was a minor miracle. From what the uniformed officers told him of her condition before the ambulance had taken her away, it would be some time before she would be in any condition to be questioned. "Anyone see anything?" he asked in frustration, not expecting an answer. The silence from the crowd did not surprise him.

"Perhaps we should talk to her friends?" Miriam commented quietly, moving out of the shadows where she had stood. "They may be able to at least give us an idea of what she was doing today."

One of the officers pointed out a sobbing woman standing in the crowd, leaning against the wall of Caine's Kung-Fu studio. "That's one of them, Angie Devlin. She lives just down the street, above some flower shop. We tried questioning her but she's pretty hysterical."

Miriam sighed in frustration. "We won't get much out of her in that condition."

Peter spun around and glared at the woman. "Her friends been tortured and left for dead in an alley. Cut her some slack!"

"I can't afford to, Detective Caine." Miriam replied calmly. "He won't wait to begin his work on his next victim just because this little diversion has created such unhappiness. If we are to catch him, we must pick up his trail and soon. Before he decides he's not having anymore fun here and moves his game on to the next city."

"Game!" Peter replied, incredulous.

"Yes. It's a game to him. One in which he makes all the rules. The only way we can stop him is to find him before he decides to fold up the game board and leave us counting up our dead. Now go over there and use your boyish charms on that woman and ask her where her friend has been all day."

"Where will you be?" he asked stiffly.

"Looking for a familiar face." She replied, walking calmly back to the alley. Behind them, a silent figure turned and walked nonchalantly from the crowd, disappearing down the street.

"So, the little witch has tracked me down." The man thought, calmly strolling down the street away from the crime scene. No one gave the man a second glance. There wasn't anything to distinguish him from any one of hundreds of middle-age men walking about the streets on Chinatown, seeing the sites or hurrying on their way to some important meeting. If anything, he was more ordinary than most, of middle height and slightly chubby, with a round face and bright blue eyes. Women didn't follow his figure with their eyes, as he had seen them do to the young police detective who had arrived to look over his latest efforts. It was something that would normally have annoyed him, but today his anonymity was a blessing in disguise. "I'll bet her employers don't know she's here." He mused, stopping to admire a vase in the window of an antique store. "Well, we'll have to remedy that little oversight." He turned and continued on, pausing only moments to drop a used Kleenex in a trash barrel. No one looked at him long enough to see that the fabric was covered in blood.

Peter and a policewoman sent from the Precinct sat with the victim's friend, Angie, in his father's kwoom. She had finally stopped sobbing long enough to give him an idea of where her friend had been. "She and I were together most of the day. But she had to make a run to the post office and I had some other shopping to do. We made plans to meet at the café just around the corner. If only I hadn't let her go off by herself! I read all those stories in the newspaper about the Ripper, but you just never imagine something like that could happen to someone you know!"

Peter knelt in front of the distraught woman, patting her hand. "I know this must all be very hard but I've got a few other questions. Do you have a recent picture of your friend? We would like to have something we can show people in the neighborhood, perhaps jog their memories a little."

"I think so." She sniffed, pulling her purse into her lap. From it's recesses she extracted a photo of a smiling, auburn-haired young girl. The girl's green eyes shown with laughter from the photo, inviting the world to laugh along with her. "That's Anne."

"May I?" a voice behind them asked. Miriam moved into the room with quiet grace. Behind her, Kwai Chang Caine gently motioned his remaining students towards the door. Miriam took the photo from Peter's hand and scrutinized it carefully. "She's very pretty. But not a natural redhead. And those green eyes are contacts, aren't they?"

"What makes you say that?" Peter asked, noting the surprise on Angie's face.

"I found one of the contacts just a few feet from where she was found, buried under some trash. And a strand of her hair was caught in a some broken boards. Enough to tell me why he didn't try to take her away for later.' She handed two little plastic bags to the detective, the wandered across the room to examine Caine's small studio. "She wasn't a perfect beauty. Not like his other victims. But near enough so he didn't realize his mistake until he had her in his grasp. Most likely her contact coming out was his first indication that she wasn't like his other victims and therefore not worthy of his complete attention. That probably saved her life."

"But others will not be so fortunate." Caine commented quietly.

Peter motioned to one of the uniformed officers to escort the distraught friend back to her home. As soon as she was out of sight, her turned to his companions. "How long do we have before he strikes again?"

"Soon. But first he'll try to distract us. I suspect our man was in that crowd, sporting a new face to go with his new identity. He was watching us examine his unfinished work and that will annoy him. Like any good artist, he doesn't want his talents judged by his rejects, only by his finest works. He'll strike again soon. But first, he'll try to distract us. Or more precisely, to distract me."

"Why?" Caine asked calmly.

"Because he knows I know him. I know how his mind works, what motivates him. Even if he changes his M.O., I'll find him again. Some things he just can't help. So he must make sure I don't get close enough to finish the job I started years ago."

"You never told me how he got away from you the first time." Peter commented.

"No, I suppose I didn't. When I caught up to him, he had just found himself a new victim, a drifter he had caught coming across the border from Mexico. The young man was approximately his age, height and weight so when Forensics went in to perform their investigations on the site…"

"Site?" Peter asked, confused. "Wait a minute, what are you talking about?"

"Well, I did say I dropped a house on him didn't I? When I went in to make the arrest he triggered an explosive device he had rigged in the basement. I was lucky to get out with my life. We all assumed, from the evidence at the scene, that he had not been so fortunate. Now, of course, in hindsight I see that was a mistake." Miriam eyed the men before her coldly. "It's a mistake I won't make again. Nor, I suspect will he be willing to let me walk away from this hunt as he did before. I'm sure he knows I'm here to finish the job."

"How?" Peter asked, a cold feeling creeping up his spine.

"Well, I expect he was in the crowd watching us when we arrived. Sociopaths of his kind like to watch the reaction their actions stimulate. Next, he'll probably contact my employers and telling them I'm being a very bad girl. You see, Detective Caine, as I told your father I'm not supposed to be here. My superiors will be very annoyed to hear that I'm hunting this particular psychopath."

"Why?"

"Probably because they see it as a personal vendetta not a professional investigation. They maybe right. But I will find the "Good Doctor" and when I do one of us will be dead. Of that I am a totally sure."


	7. Chapter 6

Pt. 6

Kermit walked swiftly down the still crowded Chinatown streets, a frown on his face. His eyes, safely hidden behind their dark green glass, scanned the perimeter in front of him, watching for anything that was out of place. Anything that would signal an attack. All around him, residents and tourists mingled happily, as though nothing dark could possibly have crept into their bright little world. Kermit's own paranoia told him that nothing was ever as peaceful as it looked. Especially not today.

Paul had called him into his office almost as soon as Peter's car had pulled out of the parking lot.

"You saw the girl?" Paul asked, staring at nothing in particular.

"The one that walked out with Peter?" he countered, leaning with the closed door against his back. He looked over the top of his glasses at his old comrade's face, concerned at what he saw. It had been a while since he had seen Paul Blaisdell look so worn out. "Yeah, what about her?"

"She said she was sent by David Rochester."

Kermit went cold at the sound of that old alias. Rochester had been almost mythic among the mercenaries who had worked with Paul. Kermit could remember hardened ex-Special Forces operatives turning pale as ghosts at the thought of having to deal with this cold-blooded Intelligence agent. "Why did he send her?"

"Seems my questions about our Ripper piqued someone's interest." Paul looked up at his old friend with concern. "Funny thing about this is that Rochester told me to leave it alone yesterday. Now he sends someone to find our killer for us? Something doesn't feel right about this, Kermit, and I'm afraid Peter's going to get caught right in the middle of it."

"Want me to keep an eye on the kid?" Kermit offered, mentally ticking off the favors he was going to have to call in before this day was over.

"He won't like it." Paul commented, a small smile forming on his craggy face. It disappeared quickly as he looked down at the case files she had touched. "But right now, his pride is the least of my worries. They were on their way to Chinatown, the site of our Ripper's most current attack. Catch up with them there. While you're at it, see if you can find out who our mysterious Ms. Nightbird really is." He leaned back in his chair with a sigh, his deep set eyes closed for a moment in fatigue.

Kermit had left the Precinct in search of his young friend, stopping only long enough to send out messages to his contacts, hoping one of them would recognize the distinctive alias the woman was using. It was a long shot, but then some of his long shots had worked out well in the past. Perhaps this one would too.

"Hey Kermit!" Peter's voice called out to him from the door to Caine's school. "Over here!"

"Jeez, kid, think you could announce me any louder?" Kermit muttered, ducking into the doorway past the last of the lab technicians. "Paul sent me along, said you might need help."

"Since when?" Peter asked, frowning.

"Since you acquired a shadow." Kermit retorted, scanning the room for the stranger he had seen at the Precinct.

"If you're looking for Ms. Nightbird, she's talking to my father upstairs in his apartment." Peter started towards the stairs then turned suddenly. "What's Paul afraid of?"

"Paul isn't afraid of anything, except you getting in to something he can't get you out of." The mercenary replied, exasperated. "This woman used the name of the one man on the face of the planet even the KGB were scared of. That should tell you something about the lady."

"It tells me that the lady has friends in low places." Miriam's musical voice floated up to them from the back of the room. She approached the two men, a small smile on her face. "David's reputation is nothing more than smoke and mirrors. White noise to distract the enemy from his obvious shortcomings. I've known men who made him look like a rank amateur." She looked again at the mercenary, his face triggering a memory buried deep in her mind. It was the same reaction she had had the first time she had read his file, but now, seeing him in person, the feeling of familiarity was even stronger. "Have we met before Mr. …?"

"Griffin." Kermit replied, frowning down at her. "I think I would remember if we had met."

"Perhaps." She agreed, moving around them towards the door. "Yet I could swear we've met. Well, let me think on it. I'm sure it will come to me." She moved out into the street, the two men following a little behind.

"Where are we going?" Peter called out.

"Dinner." Miriam replied, moving just a little faster as she weaved her way through the crowds.


	8. Chapter 7

Pt. 7

Michael Samuel slowly dragged his attention back to the screen in front of him. His conversation with Miriam had concerned him. If it were any other agent, he would have suspected her of trying to make a run from the Section, and using this madman's bloody trail to cover her tracks. But this was Miriam, Jurgen's favorite student and his oldest acquaintance in the Section. She had never made any pretense of not being totally at home in the Section, especially when her trainer was alive. There had been a time, once long ago, when he had dared to think they were even friends. Before he had been taught differently by time and experience.

"Penny for your thoughts?" Nikita asked, standing just in the doorway of his office. Her eyes swept over his impassive face with barely concealed frustration. Since Jurgen's death, there had been a distance between them, greater than any that had been there before. It seemed especially great tonight.

"It's nothing." Michael replied, turning off his computer. He followed her out of the door and into the main staging area. "We're on hold for the assignment in Tunis for a few days. Stay close to your apartment…"

"Michael." Operations cold voice cut through the space between them like a knife. "I need to see you for a moment."

Michael turned and moved back towards his Sections' leader, carefully keeping his face expressionless. "Is there a problem?"

"I'm pulling you off the Tunis assignment. Seems Oversight has lost track of one of their investigators. An old friend of ours. You remember Miriam Nightbird?"

"Yes." he replied, calmly.

"Well, it seems she has disappeared off everyone's radar. Not the first time she's done it, but this time she seems to have set off more than a few alarms. It seems she told Oversight she would be working one case and told me she would handle one of ours. Neither story is legitimate. So Oversight has requested that I send you to bring her in, one way or another." Operations watched the man in front of him carefully, noting again how well the Level 5 agent was able to conceal even the smallest fraction of his thoughts from an observer.

"Is she being sanctioned?" Michael asked, his voice betraying nothing.

"No. Oversight, for some unknown reason, wants her back in one piece. He seems to think you may have the best shot at accomplishing this. Any reason why he should think this?"

"Miriam and I have known each other for some time. Jurgen trained both of us at one point in our careers. Perhaps he believes I would know what to expect from her." Michael could see Nikita moving towards the door behind Operations, a worried look on her face. He wondered absently if someone had already told her he was being pulled off their assignment. Not that it mattered at the moment. "Where does he suggest I look for her?"

"He thought you might have some ideas about that." Operations replied smoothly. "He said something about following an old trail to a new place. Any ideas what that meant?"

"No." Michael lied impassively, his mind already formulating a plan to bring his friend back without having to kill her. "But I'll work on it." He turned and walked back to his office, leaving his Section chief watching him with a grim smile.

Operations turned away, the smile never leaving his face. Oversight had been most insistent that he send Michael on this retrieval mission. It would be very interesting to find out why.


	9. Chapter 8

Pt. 8

Dinner was a strained affair at best. For once, even Peter seemed to have run out of topics of conversation. Caine had suggested the little restaurant he and the Ancient often visited, which was just around the corner. The others had agreed, though none were particularly hungry. Miriam sat with her back to the wall, staring out the window to the street, wondering how long it would be before her prey would grow weary of the chase and move on. Or how long it would be before Oversight discovered she wasn't where she was supposed to be. "It never seems like night in the city." She murmured sadly.

"What?" Kermit asked, eyeing his dinner companion grimly.

"It's always so bright in the city. I miss the utter darkness of the country, where the only lights for miles are the stars above your head. The city is so … distracting." She shifted in her seat to get a better look at the ex-mercenary at her side. "Don't you agree, Mr. Griffin?"

"I like the city." Kermit growled, moving fractionally in the opposite direction. "Never was much for being in country. Besides, I like being able to tell the bad guys from the good guys."

"I would think in our line of work the enemy wouldn't be that easy to identify." Miriam mused.

"I'm not in your line of work." Kermit replied coldly.

"Aren't you? Ah, that's right, you're a police officer now. Of course, that makes all the difference doesn't it? But you did share my profession once, didn't you? Just like your friend Captain Blaisdell?" Miriam stopped, distracted by the sight of their waiter coming towards them. "Does anyone want anything else?"

"Forgive me, Master Caine." The young waiter sounded apologetic, fidgeting as he stood before them. "This message was left for Peter on one of the outside tables." He handed the younger man a long envelope with a bow.

Peter fished inside the envelope and removed several photos, all tied together with a black ribbon. "What the…! These are our victims!" He handed the first photo to Kermit with a scowl. "Looks like our guy is trying to get a rise out of us."

"And doing a very good job of it." Miriam commented, taking the image from Kermit's hand. "This would have been your first victim?" she asked, already aware of the answer.

"You know it is." Kermit replied, taking the next few photos from his friend. "You wouldn't have come into this unprepared. I'll bet you even know what each of these people had for dinner the day the disappeared."

"Not quite." She replied with a grim smile. "But I do have a good idea what he did to them after he pulled them into his personal nightmare world."

"We need to take these photos to the lab, see if they can pull anything off them. Probably no finger prints but …" His voice trailed off as he looked at the final image in the stack.

"Is there a problem, Detective Caine?" Miriam asked, suddenly cold.

"Yeah, I'd say so." Peter replied, flipping the photo onto the table in front of her. It was a photo of the two of them, outside of the Kung-Fu Academy, taken only an hour before. "Any bets this means one of us is next?"


	10. Chapter 9

Pt. 9

Miriam wearily tossed her jacket onto the bed of her dark room. The blinking light from the massage parlor across the street added an almost surreal feel to her environment. It wasn't the type of hotel she normally would have set up camp in. Jurgen had taught her to appreciate the finer things a city could offer, but for this assignment she had felt like making as small a target of herself as she could. It was nearly 2:00 in the morning, hours after she and Peter had left the Precinct to investigate the Ripper's latest attack. And only an hour after she had managed to lose the detective and his friend, the mysterious Mr. Griffin. "Well, I'm not going to get any sleep tonight, might as well see what I can find out in the realm of cyberspace. Maybe it will jog my memory concerning this Kermit character." She flipped open her laptop and called up the files that Oversight had collected on Blaisdell and his cronies. The light from the screen cast an eerie glow on her somber face. She studied the both men's service records, running an appreciative eye down the list of firefights Griffin had been involved in. One particular name caught her eye. "Sierra Leon? He was in Sierra Leon? Well, that explains why he seems familiar to me." Her cell phones ring interrupted her train of thought. She flipped it open quickly. "Yes?"

"You're in a place called Sloanville." Michael's calm voice responded, sounding almost as though he was in the next room.

Miriam reacted quickly. "Really?" she responded, closing up the laptop and sliding to the floor, out of visual range of the window. She cast a quick look around the room, assessing what could be left behind and what she would need to keep with her before she crawled across the room to the window, her cell phone still in her hand.

"Yes. Burkhoff ran a quick check through the news services and found some detailed stories on the "Ripper" case that the national wires had picked up from the local newspaper. The details were easy to match with your previous reports on the Doctor's activities."

"And we are having this conversation for what reason?"

"Come in now while it's still possible."

"Why Michael, for a moment I almost thought you cared." She risked a quick look out of the window then ducked back down. It was doubtful that Michael could be nearby. Not even he could have found her that quickly, but living in the Section had taught her that even the impossible could be possible with a little effort. The alley was only a quick dash down the fire escape but it would be the most predictable route to take. The hall would be more open, but at least going out the front door would be the last thing most people would expect a fugitive to do. She glanced back at her laptop for a moment then decided to leave it, trusting the seamier residents of the hotel to know how to make it disappear before Section's trackers appeared. "It's been so wonderful to hear your voice Michael, but I really haven't time for chit chat. I've a mad dog to take down and the sooner I find him, the sooner I'll be home. Bye." With a flip of her wrist she broke the connection. Staying well within the room's shadows, she edged her way back to the door and calmly made her exit.

Michael closed his cell phone and looked out of the airport window. His flight to Sloanville had been delayed due to mechanical problems, forcing him to requisition one of the Section's private jets. He had hoped to make an unobtrusive entrance into the city, but fate seemed determined to thwart him. "This will not be easy." He mused to himself, watching the play of lights on the tarmac as his jet was fueled. "She's not in the mood to listen to reason." He thought for a moment of the conversation he had had with Madeline prior to leaving. She had made no recommendations other than assessing the situation once he was with Miriam and making the appropriate retrieval plans then. In the back of his mind he could still see Miriam talking to Madeline after Jurgen's death. She had looked at him as he passed and smiled. Just smiled. He had wondered about it for months, then put it out of his mind when he had heard nothing from her. Now he wondered who was being tested here, Miriam or himself.

"Sir, your plane's ready." The pilot's voice sounded from behind him. Michael picked up his briefcase and headed into the night.

Miriam walked the streets of Sloanville for an hour, following a circuitous route to Kermit's apartment. She thought about the people involved in the case. Peter Caine was a good detective, at least according to his files. But he was an innocent when it came to the dark world of espionage. His foster father had seen to that. He'd never understand the choices she was going to have to make on this case. "Best to keep him in the dark, at least for now." Peter's father, of all of them, would be the hardest to co-opt into her little hunt, but at the same time the best choice for a backup. The rest had too many issues, too many agendas. This man was complex in his simplicity, something she found interesting. "I doubt he'd survive in Section." She thought to herself, stopping for a moment in the shadows across the street from the studio. "But he'd have made an interesting operative. For all of about five minutes. Then someone would have had to shoot him. Can't have a conscious and do the job." That only left Griffin, the ex-mercenary. She wondered briefly how he had managed to avoid the Section's attention, then shrugged. "Well, time to see if he's as inhospitable as I've heard." She glanced warily along the darkened street and ran up to the door of the apartment complex, darting into the darkened building and making her way upstairs.

Kermit opened his door on the first knock. "You're in trouble?" he asked calmly, letting her slide past him into the studio.

"I suppose it's a waste of time to ask how you knew I would be coming here?" she commented, seeking out the darkest part of the room to stand.

"I may have been out of the game for a while, but I still remember the rules. You're making an open target of yourself. What I need to know is why."

Miriam thought carefully before replying. "What I need is someone to watch my back until we found the Ripper. I suspect Peter Caine will need the same."

"You think he'll go after one of you?"

"That picture might have been a warning to back off, but I doubt it. Caine's a handsome young man, handsome enough that people notice him. That will attract the Ripper. He can't bear such beauty when he sees himself as so ugly. It makes him feel small, insecure and those are frightening feelings. Killing the beauty makes the feeling go away. For a while. So yes, I think he's going after one of us, specifically your friend. And I think we can use that to our advantage if you're willing to play along with me."

Kermit's eyes had no problem seeing the woman in the shadows, seeing that her face was almost animated at the thought of tracking down the beast. It wasn't a reassuring sight. "I'm not letting you paint a target on Peter's back."

"I wasn't aware it was your choice to make." She replied. "By now, he has probably come to the same conclusion I have about the meaning of that photo and is probably setting up some sort of trap. It won't work, of course, because the killer sent the photo with the express purpose of luring us into making that sort of a fatal error. "

"What do you want me to do?" Kermit asked, moving to turn on a desk lamp.

"Please don't do that." She said, sliding down the wall to sit on the floor. "I like the dark. Peter's plan can be used to get close to the target. There is, however, another complication. My agency is sending someone to bring me home. That can mean only one thing."

"And that is?" Kermit stopped, his hand poised over a light.

"That our quarry must be here for a reason, one that my Agency doesn't want me to interfere with. Their target was to be disguised as a victim of a serial killer, a death that would not have raised any red flags to someone who might not appreciate the concept of the ends justifying the means. If I can find that victim, I can find the Ripper, hopefully before my Agency's people find me."

"If you find his target, will you warn them?"

Miriam smiled coldly. "That's a conversation for another day, Mr. Griffin. Right now, let's just find our killer. We can debate ethics later."


	11. Chapter 10

Pt. 10

Miriam watched the sun come up from the roof of Kermit's apartment building and debated her next move. She had spent most of the night with the ex-mercenary, analyzing who might be the killer's intended target. Kermit was still at it, searching on-line for anyone of importance that might be visiting the city that would fit the profile of the killers preferred victims. For Miriam, however, it was a short list. There were only two possible victims. One was a drug manufacturer with ties to politicians in the Baltic States. He had no great love of Western democracies and had been know to sway his allies toward relations with Red Cell, an extremely violent terrorist organization. The other was the son of a government official in China, one who had been known to associate with certain groups with ties to radical reformists. Both men had information that would be useful to Section, information they would quickly give up to the "Doctor". And both were just high profile enough that their disappearances would be too noticeable. Both men also fit the killer's profile, being young and handsome men. It could be either of them. "My money's on the drug maker." She mused to herself. "Red Cell has been behind too many disasters lately for Section to risk letting a potential source of information get away." She wondered, briefly, if her target had already acquired the body he would use to replace the man he put on ice, a body no one would come looking for. Once he was finished with the victim, even their own mothers wouldn't have been able to recognize them, a fact he had used to his advantage before. She calmly pulled out the Kermit's cell phone, which she had palmed during the night, and made a call.

"Yes?" a distant voice responded.

"I'm in position. Mathews is the probably target but there has been an added complication." Miriam reported.

"Yes, I know. Michael will be arriving shortly. His presence was…unexpected."

"Suggestions?" she asked, knowing there would be none forthcoming.

"Improvise." The voice replied. A sharp click alerted her to the end of the conversation.

"Why did I even bother to ask?" Miriam sighed. She stared out at the horizon for another minute, a planning formulating in her head. She tossed the cell phone on the ground and started back down to the street, disappearing quickly into the building.

Michael poked through the few things Miriam had left behind her with a sigh. The trip to this small town had been boring as hell, a situation that only served to put the agent on edge. Boring was not a good thing when you worked for Section. It usually meant the world was about to drop out from under you feet. Miriam's little games weren't making his life any easier. She hadn't left much behind her, certainly not anything that would have led him to her. Not that Michael had expected her to. Of all the agents that Jurgen had trained Miriam had been the most careful, the most devious. Even Madeline, their ever-watchful mission profiler and mistress of deceit, had been caught unawares by the nondescript young woman. He pulled his cellphone from his pocket and quickly connected with Burkhoff. "Anything?"

"There's a former Black Ops team leader on the police force - name is Paul Blaisdell," Burkhoff replied. "Also, There was another murder last night near a martial arts school in Chinatown. The owner's name came up in a general search of Section's databases."

"A terrorist?" Michael asked, his inflection doubtful.

"Nope. Just someone that Section has had their eyes on for a while. Names Kwai Chang Caine. He's been on the outskirts of some activities in the Intelligence Community for a few years. Not a terrorist, though. He's some sort of priest."

Michael filed the information away for future reference. "Anything else?"

"I'll let you know if anything else comes up." Burkhoff's voice dropped to a whisper. "What's going on Michael? Is Miriam operating on Mandatory Refusal?"

"Why do you think that?" Michael asked with a frown.

"Just the way Operations is acting. Oversight has been sending disinterested queries to Section about the bin Laden situation. Operations is fending George off with vague excuses. Neither of them seems terribly concerned about getting her back."

"Strange." Michael murmured, his eyes wandering over the meager contents of the room. "I will check in later." He flipped the lid of the phone closed and tucked it in his pocket, his mind racing. Operations had seemed determined to have Miriam brought in. His words had led Michael to believe that Oversight also wanted his elusive agent back. Yet neither side was putting up more than a token effort to find her. Michael wondered briefly what games the Section was playing with him then turned and quietly left the room.

Across town, Karl Mathews read through one set of a mound of paper work his drug company generated with a frown. His associates in Red Cell, the ultra-violent terrorist organization, had been making more and more demands on his research and development branch. Demands that were becoming harder and harder to hide. He read quickly through the memos sent to him by his unhappy research chemists. "I'll have to have a talk with someone about this." He thought to himself. "Someone's bound to notice all these purchases of potentially hazardous biological material, even if they were spread out over several months and numerous different labs. They'll blow my legitimacy right out of the water!" A sound at the door broke through his reverie. "Yes, David, what is it?"

David Chen, head of security for Mathews International, stood nervously at the door of his employer's office. "Mr. Mathews? There's been a problem with the plans for your meeting with Wei Chin. Seems his father has sent along extra security with him that he can't shake."

Mathews sighed in exasperation. "Then find a way for him to shake them. That's what I pay you for. Wei Chin's friends in the Reform Movement in China and my friends in Europe are eager to complete their transactions before his government put a stop to them. I've agreed to act as the broker for this little arrangement and nothing, not even Daddy's guard dogs, are going to stop me. Now go out there and make it happen before tonight. Or I'll be looking for a new head of security. And the police will be looking for your worthless carcass in the river." He dismissed the man with an abrupt wave and turned back to his paperwork.

Chen quickly backed out of the office, nearly falling over the deliveryman who was setting a package on the secretary's desk. "Whoa! Sorry, didn't see you there!"

"Not a problem." The middle-age man replied, adjusting his glasses back on the bridge of his nose. "People tend to think of postmen and delivery men as invisible. It comes with the territory."

Chen patted the man absently on the shoulder in way of an apology then started back to his office. Behind him, the nondescript man in the delivery uniform watched his retreat coldly, then smiled cruelly as he reached for the office door. The last round of the game was about to begin.


	12. Chapter 11

Pt. 11

Miriam slid quietly back into Kermit's apartment, making her way back to the clicking sound of a keyboard in the front room. She laid the detective's cell-phone on the table and stopped a few feet behind the hunched-over figure, waiting patiently until he acknowledged her presence.

"Where have you been?" Kermit snarled, his eyes flickering over her reflection on the monitor. He cautiously slid the blade of a stiletto under the mousepad, just out of sight. He had not noticed, at first, that she had left the apartment. It had come as something of a shock to have someone disappear without his notice, a situation that had only added to his paranoia.

"Out. Any new developments I should be aware of?" She replied, reading the entries on the screen as they flashed by.

"Nothing yet. I've accessed Customs records on both our possible victims. They've been busy boys." He leaned back with a sigh. "But nothing to make either of them more a possible than the other."

"Doesn't matter." She said, moving cautious closer to the table. "He's probably already made his move in that area. But he won't be able to pass up the opportunity to try to make a play for your friend, Detective Caine. This kill is strictly business but Caine would be purely pleasure and that's what our boy lives for. The pleasure of the kill."

Kermit frowned as he stared up at the still figure. "So you have some sort of plan to keep the kid from getting his head blown off while taking down the bad guy?"

"Do the police in this city have a good relationship with the local news media?" She asked, ignoring his question.

"Depends on what you consider good. There's one reporter who has made a career out of covering police action. Her name's Sandra Mason."

"Contact her. Tell her Detective Caine wishes to speak with her about the killings. If she's like other news types, she'll jump at the chance to have an exclusive."

"And who's going to tell Peter he's about to be on the air?" Kermit asked, a sinking forming in the pit of his stomach.

"Who do you think?" Miriam replied. She turned and silently disappeared out the front door, leaving the mercenary to work out the details of their next move.

Peter sighed in frustration as he watched his father move through his morning exercises. He had stopped at his father's dojo early to see if he could locate the mysterious Ms. Nightbird, who had neglected to tell him where she could be located. The young detective had spent most of his evening tracking down leads and working out the plan which had come to him when he had seen that photo of himself in the restaurant. Ms. Nightbird had said she believed that the photo was a challenge, a warning that he would soon be coming for one of them. It hadn't taken his vivid imagination long to figure a way to turn that challenge to his advantage.

"You look troubled my son." Caine commented, coming to a stop in front of his son.

"Things are pretty crazy right now, Pop." Peter replied, ignoring his father's frown. "The Mayor's breathing down Paul's neck for a solution to the killings, our killer has gone to ground and may be hunting one of us and to top it all off our Ms. Nightbird seems to have disappeared."

The sound of the door opening behind them broke his concentration momentarily. Peter looked back to see a stranger walk into the dojo. The man was dressed in black, with glasses darker than Kermit's hiding his eyes. His dark hair was long and wavy and his face classically handsome. He walked as quietly as Peter's father, seeming to almost glide over the floor rather than walk. "Can we help you?" Peter asked cautiously.

"I was just passing by and saw the studio. I was wondering if the instructor was accepting new students." The man replied quietly, reaching up to pull off his dark glasses. His accented voice was low and deep, almost too soft to hear.

Caine stiffened, as he looked into the man's eyes, seeing the pain behind the carefully constructed walls the man had obviously built around his soul. "You are interested in studying Kung-Fu?" he asked gently.

"You are the master here?" the man questioned, turning his attention to the older man.

"I am a teacher." Caine replied, bowing slightly. "I am Caine."

"I am Michael Simone." The man replied, returning the bow. "And I wish to be your student."

Miriam stopped in the alley across from the dojo and scouted the area. She frowned as she watched a familiar figure enter the studio. "Damn!" she thought. "Michael works fast. Looks like I'm going to have to move to Plan B." She spotted a pay phone at the end of the street and faded into the shadows, making a mental list of the people need for the next phase of her operation.

The killer watched his newest victims sleep with a frown. This was the part of the ritual that bored him. It wasn't as satisfying when the "Chosen", as he thought of his victims, weren't aware of their surroundings. He considered waking them early and beginning the ceremony but stopped himself quickly. These two weren't actually "Chosen" - not like the others were. Not like that young detective he had seen in Chinatown was. These two were simply business, the price he paid for being allowed to continue his quest against the "beautiful ones". But that would change soon. "Yes" he thought to himself, "Soon I will have a new "Chosen" here. A new vessel for my pain. Soon." He smiled quietly to himself and turned out the lights, leaving his victims to their nightmares.


	13. Chapter 12

Pt. 12

Peter eyed the stranger warily, his instincts screaming warnings he didn't quite understand. There was something about the man, an utter stillness and coldness that was unnerving. Not even Kermit had made him as nervous as this man did. Yet his father didn't seen to be terribly concerned. "Ever taken Kung-Fu before?" he asked suspiciously.

Michael eyed the other man impassively. "I've had some lessons." He replied quietly.

"Peter." Caine warned, placing himself between the two young men. He had thought that Peter had resolved his ambivalence after Caine had taken Jake as a student. But now his son was sizing up this stranger as he would a potential opponent. "I teach many different people here, Mr. Simone, many different styles at many different levels. What would you learn from me?"

"What you would wish to teach me." Michael replied, turning away the question as he evaluated the situation. He had not really expected to find Miriam at the studio. This place fairly reeked of peace and tranquility, an oasis of calm in the midst of the chaos that was Chinatown. Tranquility was not a natural state for a Section agent, though Miriam and Jurgen had managed to make a good show of contentment in their lot. At least she had until Jurgen had died.

"Great. Someone else who can't give a straight answer. " Peter muttered. He glanced out of the window and frowned. "Oh Hell! What's she doing here?"

"She?" Caine asked, his eyes not leaving the stranger before him.

"Sandra Mason. You know, the news reporter. She must have been assigned to the "Dr. Death" story. God, the last thing I need today is to talk to her." The sound of a cell-phone ringing distracted him momentarily; just long enough for Michael to move out of the half-light of the doorway into the shadows. Peter flipped open his receiver, keeping the stranger in his sight. "Yes?"

"Kid, it's Kermit."

There was a tight tone to the ex-mercenary's voice that caught Peter's attention. "What's up?" he asked.

"Sandra Mason is on her way to you. She's been told you'll have information your willing to share with her about "Dr. Death."

"What idiot told her that?" Peter exclaimed, then stopped and stared at the phone. "You didn't!"

"Trust me, it wasn't my idea. Miriam will explain. Is she there yet?"

"No, not yet." Peter watched as Michael slowly made his way around the dojo with his father walking just outside of his reach. "Listen, do me a favor. Run a name and description for me."

"Whose name and description?" Kermit's voice suddenly iced over, as his hunter's instincts flared.

"Some guy that just walked into my dad's dojo. There's something about him, I can't explain it. He just creeps me out."

"I'm almost to the dojo." Kermit interrupted. "Let me handle this guy and you handle Sandra Mason." The phone went dead in Peter's hand.

"Great! And just what am I suppose to tell her?" Peter groused to no one in particular.

"Exactly what I tell you to say." A woman's voice called out from the back of the studio. The three men turned to see Miriam standing in the half-light holding a revolver on them. "Hello Michael. Long time no see." She smiled and calmly pulled the trigger.


	14. Chapter 13

Pt. 13

Michael winced slightly as the silenced round skidded across his check to imbedded itself on the wall behind him. Beside him, Peter yanked his gun from its holster, aiming at the still smiling figure in front of him.

"Drop your weapon!" Peter yelled.

"Shall I drop this weapon, Michael?" Miriam asked, her tone light and conversational.

"No." he replied calmly, reaching up to wipe the blood trickling down his face with one hand. "That won't be necessary."

"Not necessary?" Peter replied, astounded. "The woman tried to kill you!"

"If she had wanted me dead, she would not have announced her presence first. She would have simply shot me from the door."

"Quite right." Miriam agreed cheerfully. "I was only saying hello to an old friend. Now, put the gun away Detective before your reporter friend starts asking questions neither of us is prepared to answer." She tucked her own weapon into her waistband and bowed to Caine. "So sorry for this disruption Mr. Caine. I hadn't expected Michael to catch up with me quite this fast."

"You know one another well." Caine responded, keeping a concerned eye on his volatile son.

"Too well." Miriam sighed. "Michael is here to take me back."

"Back where?" Peter asked, frowning at the scene before him. He stepped back from the man beside him, keeping his gun in hand.

"None of your concern." Miriam responded. "Michael, the "Doctor" is in full killing mode and I will stop him this time and nothing you can say will stop me."

"Miriam…"Michael began. "We must talk. Alone."

"Not another word, mon amie. It's too late to stop this anyway. Our friend has made his last couple of captures and is ready to complete his final transaction before going in to hiding again. But I think we can convince him to step out of the shadows just one more time, just long enough for us to put him out of his misery for good this time."

"Us?" Michael asked somberly.

"You owe me, my love. And we both know I always get what is owed to me, one way or another." Miriam's voice became icy. Her eyes were reminded Caine of obsidian, cold and hard. The morning light lit her pale face, giving it an almost ethereal glow.

"You are sure he has begun the process of moving on to his next identity." Michael responded, wondering if he dared risk moving his hands. He had opened a signal to Burkhoff when he had entered the dojo, expecting that the priest would have information that could be used to trace his errant friend. By now, Burkhoff would have alerted Operations to his situation and Section would have a team moving in for clean-up.

Caine moved around Michael's still figure and stood beside Peter. "Put your weapon away, Peter. It is not needed." He laid a gentle yet firm hand on his son's arm.

Kermit chose that still charged moment to make his entrance, coming through the same back door that Miriam had chosen. "Did I miss something?" he asked sarcastically.

"Not much. Call the reporter in. Detective, you'll give the woman a profile of our killer. One that is, to say the least, less than flattering. If I'm right, he should be in the perfect state of frenzy to take offense at your words and decide to teach you a lesson. Then, he'll be mine." Miriam walked to Michael's side and pressed a piece of cloth to his cut face. "That's going to leave a scar."

"Does that please you, ma belle?" he asked somberly.

"Yes. Nothing should be too perfect. Not even people." She gently tapped the man on the chin. "Not to worry. When this is over, you can cancel me or take me home or whatever it pleases you to do. Our employer's won't hold it against you." She moved to look out of the dojo's windows, scanning the street with a practiced eye. "Oh, and I wouldn't count on back-up on this one. Just a hunch, mind you, but I'm betting that our employers are going to leave us both hanging on this one."

"Just who…"Peter began before Kermit stopped him.

"Kid, there are some things your better off not knowing."

"If this man is as practiced in the art of death as you believe," Caine asked quietly, "will he not know Peter is setting a trap for him?"

"I'm counting on that." Miriam replied soberly.

The interview with Sandra Mason took only twenty minutes. Peter, despite his protests, agreed to the plan though he suspected that Miriam had left out some of its details. He watched the dark-haired woman and her enigmatic companion as they stood in the shadows of the studio, talking quietly. "I'd give real money to know what they're saying." He mused aloud.

Kermit shook his head with a frown. "No you wouldn't. Like I said, some things your better off not knowing."

Miriam watched as the proceedings took place across the room. "If she puts this out as a special bulletin, I think we can expect our boy to make his move tonight."

"Miriam, why are you doing this?" Michael asked, wondering why Burkhoff was not feeding him intelligence on the situation. He knew that communications link was still active as he could hear faint static coming from his almost invisible earpiece. Yet he had not heard a word from the young computer specialist since before Miriam's dramatic entrance.

"Because he's a monster and deserves to be destroyed?" she replied half-heartedly.

"That is a response I would expect from Nikita, not from you. You don't care what he does so long as he doesn't do it to you."

"I'm hurt." She replied with a pout. "And here I thought you liked me."

"I know you." Michael watched the interview with growing concern. "What is going on here? What is your true assignment?"

Miriam turned and quickly reached for his face. Michael caught her wrist before she could touch him and pushed her away. "Turn off your comm.-link." Miriam commanded, staring unblinkingly into his eyes. "You won't need it for a while."

Michael considered her statement then did as she requested. "Now will you tell me what is happening?"

"Our boy is playing both sides against the middle." Miriam replied, watching Caine and Kermit as they stood almost motionless in the opposite corner, also watching the interview. "He's become a liability."

"If that is true, why did Operations send me to retrieve you?"

"Neither Operations nor George much cares one way or another about this madman. But someone does. Someone higher up in the Section hierarchy wants him available. That's who has been protecting him all these years. So I've been given the job of making sure this particular weapon is neutralized before it can be used on either your boss or mine. This is a power play, my friend, nothing more. One less pawn on the board for someone to use against us."

Michael thought about her response for a moment. It explained some of the ambiguity in his orders. But not everything. "Who gave you your orders?" he asked.

"Does it matter?" she sighed. "We don't ask questions, Michael, we merely follow orders. Just like you did when you set up Jurgen." She turned and motioned to the men to follow her. "Looks like our interview is over. Let's get ready for step two."


	15. Chapter 14

Pt. 14

The "Doctor" checked his two victims one last time, making sure the homeless drifter he had picked up on the way to Mathews office was still breathing. The killer had learned many new techniques in his years with the Section, ways to keep a body alive while experiencing all the pain and suffering normally reserved for the denizens of Hell. This victim had proven quite entertaining; with a capacity to withstand torture the killer hadn't seen in many years. It would almost be a shame to kill him. He calmly flicked on the television while he cleaned up and placed his regularly scheduled call.

"Yes?" a deep voice responded.

"It's done. Your package will be on the way shortly." The madman stopped, frowning as he watched the familiar figure of Peter Caine appear on the screen in what seemed to be some sort of special news bulletin. His eyes widened in outraged disbelief as the young detective detailed for the reporter the psychological profile of the "fiend" he thought he was chasing. "And here I thought you had a brain to go with that pretty face." The killer sneered, contemptuously. "Do you really think I'm stupid enough to fall for this?"

"I'm assuming your not speaking to Me." the voice at the other end of the phone responded dryly. "Is there a problem?"

"No problem, just a mild annoyance. Operations favorite bitch, Nightbird, is here and she's stirring up trouble."

"You should be more grateful to Miss Nightbird." The voice replied calmly. "After all, if she hadn't found you then you would never have joined our little group."

"Whatever you say." The killer eyed the phone thoughtfully. He had never actually seen the figure behind that voice, only occasionally catching glimpses of a shadowy figure watching as his Section trainers had worked to turn his mad obsessions to their advantage. "I think I'll make one little detour before I leave this little backwater town."

"Make sure my package is at the drop point at the appointed time." the voice replied coldly. "Or your life will become very unpleasant. Do I make myself clear?"

The Doctor dropped the receiver back on its cradle without a word, his eyes fixed on the flickering figure of the young detective. "You'll get your "package" he muttered, "But first, I and my Chosen One must come together. He is in serious need of correction."

Kermit watched as Peter paced the floor of his father's apartment. The young detective had been on edge since the hastily arranged news conference with Sandra Mason. He hadn't stopped moving in almost two hours. "Kid, you're going to wear a hole in that floor if you don't sit down."

"I should be out there, making a target of myself to draw that nutcase in." Peter complained bitterly.

"I think you already have." Kermit replied, dryly.

"You know what I mean." Peter bit back sharply. "I should be out there, in the open, at least pretending to hunt him down. Not hiding in the shadows of my father's rooms."

"If you make it too easy for him, he'll know it's a trap." Kermit's voice held an edge of exasperation. "Besides, being out in the open makes things too hard to control with too many variables to consider. This way, all we have to worry about is you."

Peter stopped his mindless walking and stood before the ex-mercenary, his arms crossed across his chest. "What about Ms. Nightbird and her new friend? What's their angle on this?"

"Don't ask." Kermit replied grimly. He glanced around the room somberly, making note of where everything was incase of a hasty retreat. "Whatever their reason for being here, when push comes to shove don't expect them to be in your corner. That kind is always playing a different game from you and me."

"I take it then that you don't trust me." Miriam's voice floated out of the shadows from the doorway. She picked her way around the trappings of the apothecary's trade to stand calmly before the two men.

"Where's your boyfriend?" Kermit asked, sarcastically.

"Michael? Probably checking in with his backup team to see when they will arrive." She shrugged, a mannerism eerily like Cain's. "We probably don't have too much time to make this work before they arrive."

"He's setting you up?" Kermit questioned, not terribly surprised by the news.

"Of course. He's a company man, after all. He's been ordered to bring me in and bring me is what he'll do. Even if it means letting that devil goes free."

"So how do we get around that little problem?" Kermit slid his gun out from behind his back and sighted down the barrel.

"Oh, we don't. I'm counting on their interference. It should make this all very interesting indeed." Miriam smiled at the confused detective beside her. "You're not saying much, Detective Caine. Cat got your tongue?"

"Why do I suddenly feel like a lab rat before clinical trials?" Peter asked, looking from Kermit to the dark-haired woman beside him. Neither of them offered any reassurance.

Outside, in Caine's tranquil garden, Michael was considering his options. Though he had appeared to turn off his communications link during the interview, he had only muted it, leaving the channel open to Section. Miriam's argument might be valid. The creature she was hunting was unstable and might just have slipped into the power of one of their enemies during one of his more manic phases. But this madman was not his problem. He contemplated the chances of being able to compel his former friend to return with him without the use of backup troops then dismissed the thought. Miriam would force him to kill her rather than submit. But she was a very pragmatic woman. If she were outgunned, she might consider surrender a more logical option.

"You are troubled?" Caine's soft voice came out of nowhere, startling the normally unflappable agent. He turned swiftly to find the older man had walked up behind him and stopped just out of arm's reach.

"What makes you think that?" he asked, mentally kicking himself for allowing this civilian to approach him unawares.

"You project an image of coldness, of uncaring and unfeeling aloneness. Yet I also feel much pain in your soul. Your journey in life has been a hard one."

Michael blinked then stepped back, putting more distance between him and the strange man in front of him. "I don't understand."

"You plan to betray your friend." Caine commented, moving to sit on the ground beside a small, ornamental pool.

"What has she told you?" Michael asked, a sick coldness settling in his stomach.

"She speaks little of anything other than this beast she hunts. Yet, it is in your eyes when you look at her, that painful darkness that you embrace."

Michael stood in silence, hoping Operations was not standing over Burkhoff's shoulder again. If he heard this man's words he would order Michael to bring him to section, a fate the Operative sensed would lead to the man's death. "We had better get inside and prepare. The Doctor should be making his move soon."

The words had barely left his lips when a projectile came flying over the wall to land at his feet. Michael stepped back instinctively, prepared for the object to explode. Caine rose gracefully to his feet and reached down to examine the object. It was a small box, covered with brown paper and tied shut with twine. Caine slipped the rope off the box and unwrapped it carefully, handing the paper to Michael. "There is a message written on this wrapping" he remarked.

Michael scanned through the message quickly. "It's addressed to your son. The message says if we wish to see someone named Mathews again we are to come to Tanner Park in one hour. And he has sent a gift, a token of his appreciation for Peter's description of him."

Caine frowned as he opened the small wooden box, and then stiffened in shock and horror. Inside, nestled in a bed of dirty newspaper, was the remains of a man's finger.


	16. Chapter 15

Pt. 15

Peter looked up, startled as his father and the mysterious Michael re-entered the room. "What's happened?" he asked, taking note of his father's worried expression.

Michael, ignoring the young detectives question, walked up to Miriam and handed her a sheet of dirty brown paper. "Just arrived."

She read through the short message quickly. "Is this all?"

"No." Michael admitted, holding out his hand for the wooden box Caine still held. He took it from the older man and handed it to Miriam, his face as impassive as ever. "This was with it."

She opened the box carefully and held it out for the others to see. "I told you he already had his target in hand" she commented to Kermit, who grimaced at the contents of the box.

Peter took a quick look and turned away, sickened. "How can you be so calm about this?" he railed at her.

Miriam closed the box and set it gingerly on the table beside her. "Would it help anything for me to get hysterical? We'd best be on our way if we're going to get to the park."

"He'll be expecting us." Michael pointed out calmly.

"Of course he will. That's the whole point of this, isn't it?" Miriam crumpled the paper she still held in one hand and tossed it expertly in the direction of a wastepaper basket. It skidded off the rim and bounced away into a corner. "Dang! Never could get the handle of that shot. Anyway, sometimes the best way to avoid getting caught in a trap is to walk right into it. Besides, I have a feeling our friend the Doctor won't be the only one coming to this little party. And it's that person I need to see." She smiled coldly at Kermit and motioned him to precede her out the door. "You can take care of one little psycho, can't you Mr. Griffin? As I recall, you didn't have much of a problem in Sierra Leon."

Kermit stopped dead in his tracks and looked back at her, stone faced. "Sierra Leon? Sorry, you've lost me."

"I doubt that," she laughed. "It took me a while but I finally remembered where we'd met before. You and your black-ops buddy Mr. Blasdell were part of a strike force taking out a terrorist camp in a backwater area of Sierra Leon when you came across what you thought was their advance guard. Only problem was, it wasn't. There was a quick and dirty firefight and then the other team retreated. When you made it to the camp, you found the terrorists were all dead. Didn't you ever wonder what had happened?"

"Why do I get the feeling I'm looking at what happened?" Kermit stared down at the young woman in front of him with a coldness Peter had not seen before. "How old were you when you made your first kill?"

"Hypothetically, if I were the killer you think I am, that would be information you might find dangerous to obtain." She moved gracefully past the mercenary then turned back with a smile. "Sixteen." She smiled at Peter's shocked expression and disappeared out the door, Michael following closely behind her.

"Sixteen!" Peter gasped, looking back at his friend.

"I guess she got a taste for the life early." Kermit commented, and then proceeded to follow the others out the door.

Peter looked at his father, disbelief in his eyes. "My God, what kind of monster turns a sixteen year old girl into a killer?"

Caine looked back at his son with sorrow. "There is much darkness in the world, my son. You can only fight so much of it before it overwhelms you. She and her friend Michael were swallowed up by the shadows early in their lives and neither can find the path back to the light. Nor can this man who has challenges you. But they, at least, hold some part of their uncorrupted chi hidden in secret places where the darkness cannot reach. This man," he motioned to the box on the table with a grimace "does not. It is he you must fear, not them."

"You coming?" Kermit's voice rang out from the stairway.

"Yeah, we're coming." Peter called back. He felt his father grip his shoulder and took comfort in the gentleness and strength of his father's touch. Then they both moved forward towards their confrontation with the darkness.

The killer moved quickly along the crowded streets of Chinatown, headed for his car. It had been an easy thing to find a young boy willing to throw a small package over the wall of the Apothecary's home for a fee. Even if Nightbird or the young detective had tried seeing who had delivered the challenge, all they would have seen was a young figure scurrying away. He smiled in anticipation of the coming events, knowing that the Section operative would not leave the young man to attend the rendezvous by himself. He would stay out of sight until he was sure that they and their friends were alone, then would spring the traps he had already prepared, immobilizing Peter Caine and his friends. He smiled at the thought of the suffering it would cause them to know he had taken their friend away and they had been unable to stop him. And the best part of it would be the look on his sponsor's face when he presented him with not only his original target but also a Level 5 operative from Section 1. So intent was the man on his visions of revenge he was oblivious to the car that followed his movements at a discreet distance. The killer jumped in his car and roared off, his silent companion keeping pace not far behind him.

In the car, a dark figure watched the grinning assassin with distaste. "Well, I suppose he had to outlive his usefulness someday. Pity, I was really hoping to introduce him into Section One. It would have made my takeover of the operation so much easier." He tapped on the glass separating him from his driver. "Is the transmitter in his car still coming in clearly?"

"Yes." the driver replied, his voice muffled by the sounds of the electronic equipment that took up part of the front seat. "We should be able to follow him at a distance without his getting suspicious."

"Good. Let's get this over with." The shadowy figure settled back in his seat with a sigh and watched the bustling streets breeze by him, lost in his own thoughts.


	17. Chapter 16

Pt.16

Burkhoff looked up at Operations with a frown. "Do we send in the backup team?" he asked quietly, his fingers poised over his keyboard.

Operations smiled coldly. "No. Let Miriam play this hand out. Have Michael's team stand ready at this park in case they are needed but they are not to interfere. At least, not until I give the order." He walked away, his shark's smile still on his face, leaving the younger man to wonder at his next move. As he gave the order to the team, Burkhoff noticed Walter walking across the staging area, headed for his arsenal. He motioned to him, then turned away, hoping neither anyone would wonder at their conversation.

"Yeah, what's up?" Walter asked, leaning against the terminal. The older man looked briefly down at his friend then kept his eyes on the area in front of him, watching for Operations or Madeline's approach.

"Something weird is going on with this mission Michael's on. He's supposed to bring a rogue agent in but so far, neither Operations nor George has given him much grief about how long it's taking him. And Operations just pulled his backup team back to a standby position. It doesn't make any sense."

"Who's the operative?" Walter asked, intrigued despite himself.

"Miriam Nightbird" Burhoff responded, keeping his eyes on his display.

"Oh Hell!" Walter slid off the console, his expression concerned. "Miriam was Jurgen's pet student. She's in tight with Oversight. If she went rogue, then there was a reason for it."

"You think she's on Mandatory Refusal?" Burkhoff asked, remembering the time Michael had cut himself off from the Section in order to complete a mission.

"I think she's probably after Michael's hide for what he did to Jurgen." Walter turned quickly and loped off towards his weapons area, leaving Burkhoff to wonder whether Michael knew exactly what he had been assigned to do.

Miriam stared out of the window as Kermit drove both she and Michael to the rendezvous point. Peter and his father were following in Peter's car. The city scenes flashed by like images from a silent movie, each open to multiple interpretations. "I really don't like the city." She sighed stretching out in the back seat.

"Too crowded?" Kermit asked, dryly.

"Too bright." She replied, making a face. "I like the darkness. It suits me."

"When we get to the rendezvous…"Michael began, his unemotional voice putting a damper on the conversation.

"We split up." Miriam continued, propping herself up with the elbows on the door.

"Not a great idea." Kermit commented, slowing as he made the turn into the park. "Splitting up our forces that way."

"Not a great idea." She agreed with a smile. "But better than his." She suddenly jerked open the car's back door and threw herself out, rolling onto the grass and disappearing into the shadows surrounding the park.

"Hell!" Kermit swore, screeching to a halt. "What happened?"

Michael ignored the man beside him as he slid out of the car; gracefully loping off in the direction the rogue agent had gone. He frowned as her trail disappeared quickly. "Burkhoff?" he whispered, scanning the area.

"Here." Burkhoff's voice whispered in his ear. "What's happening?"

"She's gone again." he replied, watching as Peter's car screeched to a halt beside Kermit's. "Where's the backup team?"

"Operations pulled them. You're on our own."

Michael walked slowly back to the car, hoping that whatever his former friend had planned would not make a bad situation worse. From behind him the mournful song of a night bird rose to the full moon. All the pieces were in place. Now the game could truly begin.


	18. Chapter 17

Pt. 17

Miriam slid quietly through the shadows, blending in to the darkness with a practiced ease. From her vantage point – hidden by the low-hanging branches of an overgrown shrub – she could see the target's car pull into a shadowy spot beside the park's fence and stop. The killer hopped out quickly, looking much as he had that day years before when she had tried to erase him from the face of the planet. He still moved with those quick, nervous steps, as though he expected something to jump out at him from behind every bush. "Well, maybe something will" she thought wryly. Miriam watched her target unlock his trunk and drag something large and heavy from its depths, depositing the item beside the car then he turned and walked into the park, heading for the rendezvous point. From the almost animal sounds emanating from the item, she deduced that it must be one of his final victims. For a moment she considered shooting the poor wretch but decided against it, knowing the killer's reaction to loosing his prey would giver her position away to Michael. She slid backwards on her belly, crawling to a new vantage point to watch the upcoming meeting.

Michael and Kermit stationed themselves at opposite ends of the clearing, each man watching the dark, overgrown areas cautiously. Kermit hadn't said a word to the handsome Section agent after he had returned from his cursory search for Miriam, except to point out that they hadn't much time to get ready. Michael hadn't had much to say either, his mind racing with possible ways this scenario could end.

Peter had made sure to park his car in the one open and still well lit part of the old park, wondering how long it would take for the killer to make his move. "I really hate this part of it," he griped.

"This part of what, my son?" Caine asked calmly, folding his long legs under him as he sat down on the gravel parking lot.

"Waiting for something to happen." Peter replied, starting to pace. He stopped suddenly, cocking his head to one side as an unusual sound reached his ears. "Pop? Do you hear…?"

But Caine had already heard the muffled cries of the killer's prisoner. He started off quickly into the park, following the moans to their origin with Peter following closely behind him. Suddenly he stopped, sweeping his arm back to keep Peter from moving forward. "Wait!" he whispered.

"What?" Peter stopped, peering into the darkness in front of him. "I don't see anything."

"There is a dark string tied between the trees in front of us at eye level and another a few feet away tied at the level of our ankles." Caine ducked quickly under the string in front of him and motioned Peter to follow his lead. "Tread carefully. I fear this man has set traps for any who dare to come into his presence."

Miriam watched the pair as they negotiated the traps set for them by the killer. "Clever." She mused, watching the older priest carefully lead his son through the maze. "Very clever. Pity he has a soul. He might have been useful." She looked up suddenly, her sharp hearing detecting the sound of an approaching car. "Well, gangs all here. I guess it's time to wrap up this little game. Too bad. I was beginning to have fun." She crawled forward another few yards and watched the dark car pull up behind her targets vehicle. The driver hopped out and pulled open the back door for a tall, dark figure. The figure walked slowly over to where the imprisoned victim was still laying beside the first car and calmly lit a cigarette before walking in the same direction as the killer.

Miriam waited until the taller figure had disappeared into the park before confronting the driver. He never knew what hit him, the bullet to the back of his head taking his life in a few seconds. As his lifeless form collapsed at her feet, Miriam reached inside the car and appropriated the cell phone that had been on the drivers seat. She quickly dialed and number and waited impatiently for an answer.

"Yes?" Operations asked, his familiar voice sounding as though he were standing beside her, instead of miles away.

"Hey old man, it's your favorite rogue." Miriam replied glibly. "Tell Michael's backup team it's time to come in and pick up the pieces."

"Why should I do that?"

"Because you're curious to see what I've been up to, because you're worried Michael and I might get into a shooting war and give away our secret little world, or maybe just because you can. I don't care what rational you use, just get them moving. I'm working on a tight schedule here." She clicked off the line and quickly dialed another number.

"Is it done?" the voice asked, not bothering with a greeting.

"As soon as the backup team makes their move, I'll make mine. I take it I'm not to come home with any new pets?" Miriam slowly inched her way around the dead body at her feet and popped the car's trunk to reveal another covered and squirming figure. She gingerly pulled away the blanket that covered the figure's face to reveal the sweating, tortured features of Karl Mathews – drug manufacturer and ally of the Red Cell terrorist organization. She smiled grimly then slid the blanket back over his terrified face.

"You're to approach this as always. Eliminate all your targets." The voice sounded calm, as though they were discussing the purchase of a new dress, not the murder of several individuals.

"What about Caine and his companions?" Miriam asked, standing and preparing to follow the path back into the park.

"Your recommendation would be…?" the voice asked.

"Surveillance. Nothing more. They aren't wired in enough to threaten us. If need be, I can always find them later. And I think that at least Detective Caine and his friend Kermit Griffen might prove useful later on, given the right handling."

"Agreed."

Miriam signed off then tossed the cell phone into the grass. She moved a few steps away from the bound figures of Mathews and bent over the first captive still on the ground. With a practiced ease she placed the barrel of her silenced revolver against his head and pulled the trigger. The man's struggles ended abruptly and with them his pain. She carefully partially closed the trunk, leaving Mathews in the dark but with enough air flow to survive at least until the backup team retrieved him. After that, his life became the property of Section, a fate she heartily wished on any Red Cell ally. Looking around she checked her handiwork then glanced down at her watch. Time was growing short. The mission was almost to an end. She jogged down the path for a few feet than moved quickly into the brush. Ahead, she could hear the confrontation beginning.


	19. Chapter 18

Pt. 18

The Doctor stared at the figures of Peter Caine and his father hungrily, his twisted mind already reviewing all the new, slow tortures he had planned for this new Chosen one. The old man he would keep for a while, the better to control his new pet but ultimately he would have to eliminate him. It would be too difficult to hide the two men, especially with the local constabulary hunting him. "Not that they have a snowballs chance in Hell of finding me," he snickered to himself. "Section will see to that."

"As entertaining as this little meeting is," a cold voice from behind him began., "I do have something of a tight schedule. Where, pray tell, is my merchandise?" A figure moved from behind the trees and stood beside the madman, looking down at the two figures working their way slowly past his traps. The low shadows played across the man's cold face, hiding cold blue eyes that could freeze a person's soul.

"So, we finally meet," the Doctor replied carefully, keeping his benifactor at arms length. "After so many years of doing business I finally get to see your face. Do I dare hope to get a name as well?"

"Sadly, my name would be of no use to you. Especially where you're going." The man calmly pulled a revolver from his pocket and aimed it carefully at his companion's chest.

"You won't shoot me," the Doctor scoffed, crossing his arms across his chest and leaning against a nearby tree. "I'm still useful to you." A small sound, like a gnat buzzing in the breeze, cut the silence between the two men. The Doctor looked down, wide eyed at the spreading crimson stain on his chest then looked back at his handler, his protector from all those who would have stopped his holy mission. "No…" he whispered, just as yet another soft sound announced the arrival of another projectile, this one entering between his eyes. The madman's stocky form crumpled to a lifeless heap at the feet of his mysterious companion, who looked down at his own gun in mild amusement.

"You always were a good shot, my dear," he commented, scanning the bushes for the slight form he knew was hiding there. His words were met with silence. "I don't suppose we can make some sort of arrangement…" He appeared to contemplate his statement for a moment then shook his head. "No, I suppose not. Ah well, until the next time." He turned and disappeared back down the path without a glance at the monster he had nurtured for so long.


End file.
